A Novel Hybrid Approach to Tune the Rician K-Factor in Reverberation Chambers

Reverberation chambers serve a critical function in assessing the performance of wireless communication systems by providing controlled testing environments. A key aspect of this evaluation is the manipulation of the Rician K-factor within these chambers. The primary challenge arises from the inherently low values of the Rician K-factor, which require deliberate adjustments to accurately simulate real-world communication conditions. Traditionally, the tuning of the Rician K-factor involves the introduction of lossy elements, which decreases the quality factor of the chamber and necessitates additional costs for amplification to sustain the desired electromagnetic field intensity. An alternative approach focuses on the selection of electromagnetic states within the chamber, which does not significantly alter the field amplitude but may affect its statistical properties. The proposed method represents a trade-off between these two strategies, enabling a reduction in amplification costs while preserving the statistical fidelity of the electromagnetic field distribution to remain Rician. This method has been successfully implemented across different chamber configurations and has been explored in various frequency ranges.